The No-Mod Rebuttal

[Penny Patton]

My opinion on no-mod content is no secret. I will almost never buy no-mod and neither should you if you value your money, your land or your avatar.

 Okay, okay, there are exceptions. Scripts totally need to be no-mod or they are effectively full perm.  When I talk about no-mod I'm referring to objects. The prims and mesh.  I'm not suggesting scripts need to be full perm. Another possible exception would be items for closed gaming systems where modding could open them up to abuse and cheating. I'm not 100% sold on this as a simple examination of items in a game would reveal if they'd been tampered with but I'm generally willing to give this a pass as such items typically aren't used outside their game context. As for the rest...

When you buy no-mod you are giving up the right to personalize the object beyond whatever meager concessions the creator allows.

•  Do you see an easy way to reduce the Land Impact or Draw Weight of the item? Too bad, you're not allowed to take advantage of it!
•  Do you see a problem with the item that is easy to fix? Too bad, you're not allowed to fix it. Better hope the creator is offering support!
•  Is the object horrifically out of scale and there's no resize script? Well, you're out of luck.
•  Do you need to retexture the item to make it fit the scene you purchased it for? Well if it's no mod, there goes that idea! What about VRAM use? Could some simple retexturing help boost your framerates? TOO BAD! Those framerates you lose are part of the cost of your no-mod item.
•  Do you utilize a rezzing system so you can easily swap out environments and add more to your land? Well, I hope you're willing to give up the freedom and value that type of system grants you. That no-mod couch you bought is totally worth the extra $5-$300usd/month the tier is going to cost you, right? (And if you don't know what I'm talking about or think I'm exaggerating, you should click that link and learn how to get a lot more value out of the land you're paying for.)

 You give up all of this and more when you buy no-mod and get nothing in place of it. Oddly enough, the seller gets nothing by selling you no-mod items either so why, then, is so much content sold no-mod? Well, there's been a few reasons given over the years and we're going to look at each of these reasons one by one and see if they hold any water.

"It protects my work against content thieves/copybot!"

 For over a decade this was not only the most common reason given, but the only reason given. There's one major flaw in this argument however: It is entirely, 100% false. It is simply not true. At no point was it ever true. The people who cling to this justification for no-mod simply do not understand how SL or "copybot" works. Some of those still clinging to this justification today know it's not true but are unwilling to admit they were wrong.

"I don't want my customers ruining my artistic vision!"

Anyone who utters a statement like this should not be selling content, in my opinion. If they are that insecure and truly believe the modifications of others can ruin their precious reputation they have not achieved a professional level of maturity. They can sell with the perms they like, but I for one would not trust them with my money.

"It cuts down on customer support I have to deal with from customers who break their purchases!"

Or, you know, you could box the content so that your customer always has a backup copy. You can also put in nice big letters "If you broke something, get a fresh copy from the box it came in before contacting me." at the top of your customer support page. This achieves the exact same goal without crippling the item you're selling.

 

 And that's pretty much it. These are the only three justifications I've ever seen for selling content no-mod and I always point out the fallacies in these attempts at justification but the person I'm trying to discuss the issue with either doesn't reply at all, or simply restates their original argument as if repeating themselves will somehow lessen my rebuttal.

 How about you? Have you heard other justifications? Do you have some of your own that I might have overlooked? As no-mod becomes more and more prevalent (just try to buy a modifiable mesh body that isn't furry/anime these days, not to mention some of the frightening conversations on the topic over in Sansar discussion boards) I think it's more important than ever to make this a public discussion.

[Pamela Galli]

24 minutes ago, Penny Patton said:

 

"I don't want my customers ruining my artistic vision!"

Anyone who utters a statement like this should not be selling content, in my opinion. If they are that insecure and truly believe the modifications of others can ruin their precious reputation they have not achieved a professional level of maturity. They can sell with the perms they like, but I for one would not trust them with my money.

 It’s not a matter of trusting  with my money, as I don’t care what anyone does wth my money after I pay them.. It’s simply that the value of the product is diminished when you take away the modify permission.  It’s like comparing a regular jackknife with a Swiss Army knife. However, If the price is low enough., the product could still be worth the price to some people — for example, those who never modify anything.   Extreme example: some people would want a no mod vehicle that cost one Linden rather  than a mod vehicle that cost $L5000.  But they would not pay the same price for both. 

 I don’t think it has anything to do with whether I think someone is too insecure to be selling products.  I don’t really care what anyone’s motivation is. I just want the maximum value for my money. In any case, I doubt any seller is going to modify his permission choices based on someone thinking he is insecure.  It’s the buyer who has all the power. If no mod objects are a problem for you then it’s up to you to continue educating the public, and calling for a boycott or however you think best to change buyer behavior. 

[Paul Hexem]

Certain scripted objects really can/should be no-mod to protect functionality, beyond just games.

Other than that, there really is no reason to make something no-mod. Especially bodies and clothes.

Nothing worse than getting criticized for using a certain mesh body when it's the only one on the market that can be modified.

[Prokofy Neva]

I hear all those reasons, especially the last one. But there's one more -- most of all, I hear, explicitly or not, that no-mod enables a merchant *to charge for a custom version*. Hello! So if something is blue and I want it pink, the no-mod maker can charge me. If it is small and needs to be large, they can charge me AGAIN. But that's ok. I don't mind. I just would like to pay that higher price up front in the form of the moddable item in the first place. But it's a long habit for some.

I won't boycott these merchants, but I will lower my ratings on the MP in my reviews and sound off about their deficiencies on my blog. There are certain things that could be obviously improved in an item -- like moving from prims to convex hull which sometimes cuts land impact in half. Not so on no-mod. Or "light" is stuck on something, and it really kills the buzz. But you can't turn it off. And so on.

[Penny Patton]

1 hour ago, Gadget Portal said:

Certain scripted objects really can/should be no-mod to protect functionality, beyond just games.

That's fair enough, if modding would harm the functionality somehow, but it's important to determine whether or not that functionality is particularly important to the item.

For example, I've spoken to at least one mesh body creator (who shall remain nameless) who told me that they sold their body no-mod because linking and unlinking pieces to it would break the functionality of the HUD. However, if someone is modding a mesh body, particularly in linking and unlinking pieces to it, they are probably aware that the HUD will be rendered useless and are perfectly fine with that trade-off.  One of the first things I do with a mesh body is rip the scripts out entirely because I won't be needing them.

 Now, I imagine this isn't the sort of functionality you're talking about but it's 1:30am and I can't think of any solid examples of where no-mod is called for to preserve functionality.

 

3 hours ago, Pamela Galli said:

 It’s not a matter of trusting  with my money, as I don’t care what anyone does wth my money after I pay them.. It’s simply that the value of the product is diminished when you take away the modify permission. 

This is true. The comment you're referring to is me saying "If this person is so insecure that they're willing to take usability away from me for fear that I might make their precious creation worse (or, heaven forbid, better) then how can I trust them to provide decent customer support if I have an issue?" I'm probably being overly bitter due to some bad experiences with precisely this sort of seller. You're quite right, however, that it has nothing to do with trusting them and everything to do with the diminished value of the item. Why should I buy an inferior product just because the creator is insecure?

 You're also right that price is an issue. I might grumble a little but I won't feel so strongly about a no-mod freebie, or cheap throw-away sort of toy, not nearly to the extent I feel about it with regards to mesh bodies, furniture, skyboxes, etcetera.

1 hour ago, Prokofy Neva said:

I hear all those reasons, especially the last one. But there's one more -- most of all, I hear, explicitly or not, that no-mod enables a merchant *to charge for a custom version*. Hello! So if something is blue and I want it pink, the no-mod maker can charge me. If it is small and needs to be large, they can charge me AGAIN. But that's ok. I don't mind. I just would like to pay that higher price up front in the form of the moddable item in the first place. But it's a long habit for some.

Oh wow, yeah. I forgot about this one. It used to be very common back in the pre-mesh days, where people would sell no-mod system clothing so they could charge people for things like tinting a white shirt to another colour and sell "fat packs" full of minor texture changes. That's never sat well with me. And yeah, I'll totally pay a little more up front for a modifiable version of an item, so long as the seller doesn't use it as an excuse to squeeze me for unreasonable amount of money.

And yeah, when I say I won't buy no-mod it's not so much a call to boycott so much as simple statement of fact, I just won't buy no-mod because you lose so much in the deal. If the same store also sells modifiable content I like, I'll totally buy that content from them. 

[Anna Nova]

I know of this clothes store that gives away a L$200 gift card every week.  Over the year I have got most of the stores', now free, no-mod clothes.  They are quite good if you like boring textures, and some of them fit.  Since they are so obviously not valued by the seller, I have considered copying them to texture myself.......    but life's too short.

[Paul Hexem]

1 hour ago, Penny Patton said:

That's fair enough, if modding would harm the functionality somehow, but it's important to determine whether or not that functionality is particularly important to the item.

For example, I've spoken to at least one mesh body creator (who shall remain nameless) who told me that they sold their body no-mod because linking and unlinking pieces to it would break the functionality of the HUD. However, if someone is modding a mesh body, particularly in linking and unlinking pieces to it, they are probably aware that the HUD will be rendered useless and are perfectly fine with that trade-off.  One of the first things I do with a mesh body is rip the scripts out entirely because I won't be needing them.

 Now, I imagine this isn't the sort of functionality you're talking about but it's 1:30am and I can't think of any solid examples of where no-mod is called for to preserve functionality.

Yeah, there aren't too many. I was just pointing out that there are LSL functions that expect certain prim properties to always be the same.

More on topic, I particularly enjoy the argument that they're protecting against copybot/content theft. Chances are, your object is more likely to be botted when you use no-mod.

[Bitsy Buccaneer]

IMO a better argument than insecurity and immaturity is the fact that no creator has complete control over how another person's computer will render an item. The idea of full control is an illusion.

This isn't saying that maturity and confidence don't come into play in terms of recognising and accepting this. They do factor in. But the creators who need to hear it will likely close off to the entire argument rather than recognise these things in themselves.

 

[Phil Deakins]

7 hours ago, Penny Patton said:

 Do you utilize a rezzing system so you can easily swap out environments and add more to your land? Well, I hope you're willing to give up the freedom and value that type of system grants you. That no-mod couch you bought is totally worth the extra $5-$300usd/month the tier is going to cost you, right? (And if you don't know what I'm talking about or think I'm exaggerating, you should click that link and learn how to get a lot more value out of the land you're paying for.)

I thought I knew what you're talking about, but if my understanding is correct, then I feel sure that you are mistaken. So I clicked the link, as you suggested, and found this:- "There is a catch. Rezzers only work with copy/mod content." The page at the end of the link is written by you, so it's not exactly verification of your claim in this thread.

Certainly rezzers only work with copyable items. That's necessary. But them not working with no-mod items is news to me, and it makes no sense. So much does it make no sense that, unless someone who does a lot of programming verifies your claim, I'm going to test it. To do that will take a bit of time and I'm about to go out, so I'm not checking right now.

Edited January 16, 2018 by Phil Deakins

[Love Zhaoying]

Solution: don’t buy no-mod. You’re welcome!

[Theresa Tennyson]

1 hour ago, Phil Deakins said:

I thought I knew what you're talking about, but if my understanding is correct, then I feel sure that you are mistaken. So I clicked the link, as you suggested, and found this:- "There is a catch. Rezzers only work with copy/mod content." The page at the end of the link is written by you, so it's not exactly verification of your claim in this thread.

Certainly rezzers only work with copyable items. That's necessary. But them not working with no-mod items is news to me, and it makes no sense. So much does it make no sense that, unless someone who does a lot of programming verifies your claim, I'm going to test it. To do that will take a bit of time and I'm about to go out, so I'm not checking right now.

Note that she was talking about rezzing an entire scene. The rezzers of this type that I've seen rely on a helper script being dropped into each item, which is impossible with no-mod content. It's possible for a rezzer to rezz a single no-mod item at a specific location (many vehicle rezzers work this way) but that's impractical for a large scene.

[Zoxin UwU]

To weigh in as a creator, I reserve no-mod for scripts and whenever the marketplace feels like screwing me over (it loves delivering objects as no-mod).

Else, many creators,  myself included, host a repository for textures/models (some reservedly *Ahem*) for modders to use as templates - who am I to restrict another persons creativity, especially in a place like Second Life?

 

I don't speak for all content creators and you should always try to respect an artists point of view when it comes to using their work, this will forever be a back and forth subject.

[Qie Niangao]

1 hour ago, Phil Deakins said:

... Certainly rezzers only work with copyable items. That's necessary. But them not working with no-mod items is news to me, and it makes no sense. So much does it make no sense that, unless someone who does a lot of programming verifies your claim, I'm going to test it. To do that will take a bit of time and I'm about to go out, so I'm not checking right now.

The thing is, no-mod items will rez just fine, but then you're stuck with them until you manually grab each one and delete it, before you can rez the items in the next scene. 

Back on the topic of valid exceptions, there's one that emerged from Innula's astute comments in the last thread. It's an ingenious (if inelegant) workaround for an inherent limitation in SL's permissions system. And of course it lies down a narrow and twisty passage of explanation. To wit:

Furniture sellers want to include special "props" that rez and attach to the avatar sitting on the furniture, like a teacup or newspaper or whatever. Some third party makes the teacup and quite reasonably doesn't want it distributed full-perm -- but the furniture seller can't restrict permissions to the furniture buyer because that "next owner" will then want their furniture to work for guests, and any attachment must be owned by the avatar to whom it attaches. (This is an instance of the familiar class of "next-next owner" permissions problem in SL value chains.)

Until fairly recently, setting no-mod wasn't much help here. About the best promise a furniture maker could offer those third-party teacup creators was to make the teacup temp-on-rez and have the script temp-attach* it to the end user. (Temp-on-rez is to handle the case of the sitter permitting it to attach but has no open attachment slots, which leaves it rezzed unattached and owned by that sitter.) And that won't satisfy third-party ToSs.

What some third-party creators may agree with, though, is a script that checks that their teacups are rezzed by an object created by their licensee (and some other checks to make sure it's really that licensee's product), all depending on the (still mostly undocumented) OBJECT_REZZER_KEY flag for llGetObjectDetails(). A script calling that function for this special purpose must be in a no-mod object to be sure it runs any time the teacup tries to temp-attach or even rezzes on script-enabled land.

Note that this doesn't satisfy any known ToS yet, so a furniture maker needs to explain all this to the teacup-maker and get them (and/or their lawyers) to understand and agree to it. Most furniture makers I know would rather either create their own disposable, full-perm props -- too bad for those third-party teacup-creators -- or eschew such prop attachments altogether (and thus yet another feature, temp-attach, remains disappointingly under-used).

______________
*In fact, even temp-attach itself is relatively recent. Older furniture distributes Inventory items for the sitter to attach manually. Same permissions problem there, and this workaround can't help with that.

 

Edited January 16, 2018 by Qie Niangao

[Paul Hexem]

11 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

The thing is, no-mod items will rez just fine, but then you're stuck with them until you manually grab each one and delete it, before you can rez the items in the next scene. 

Back on the topic of valid exceptions, there's one that emerged from Innula's astute comments in the last thread. It's an ingenious (if inelegant) workaround for an inherent limitation in SL's permissions system. And of course it lies down a narrow and twisty passage of explanation. To wit:

Furniture sellers want to include special "props" that rez and attach to the avatar sitting on the furniture, like a teacup or newspaper or whatever. Some third party makes the teacup and quite reasonably doesn't want it distributed full-perm -- but the furniture seller can't restrict permissions to the furniture buyer because that "next owner" will then want their furniture to work for guests, and any attachment must be owned by the avatar to whom it attaches. (This is an instance of the familiar class of "next-next owner" permissions problem in SL value chains.)

Until fairly recently, setting no-mod wasn't much help here. About the best promise a furniture maker could offer those third-party teacup creators was to make the teacup temp-on-rez and have the script temp-attach* it to the end user. (Temp-on-rez is to handle the case of the sitter permitting it to attach but has no open attachment slots, which leaves it rezzed unattached and owned by that sitter.) And that won't satisfy third-party ToSs.

What some third-party creators may agree with, though, is a script that checks that their teacups are rezzed by an object created by their licensee (and some other checks to make sure it's really that licensee's product), all depending on the (still mostly undocumented) OBJECT_REZZER_KEY flag for llGetObjectDetails(). A script calling that function for this special purpose must be in a no-mod object to be sure it runs any time the teacup tries to temp-attach or even rezzes on script-enabled land.

Note that this doesn't satisfy any known ToS yet, so a furniture maker needs to explain all this to the teacup-maker and get them (and/or their lawyers) to understand and agree to it. Most furniture makers I know would rather either create their own disposable, full-perm props -- too bad for those third-party teacup-creators -- or eschew such prop attachments altogether (and thus yet another feature, temp-attach, remains disappointingly under-used).

______________
*In fact, even temp-attach itself is relatively recent. Older furniture distributes Inventory items for the sitter to attach manually. Same permissions problem there, and this workaround can't help with that.

 

But why would you buy restricted permission items if you intend to sell it with furniture that presumably doesn't have said restrictions? 

Just buy a similarly unrestricted teacup.

[Phil Deakins]

1 hour ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

Note that she was talking about rezzing an entire scene. The rezzers of this type that I've seen rely on a helper script being dropped into each item, which is impossible with no-mod content. It's possible for a rezzer to rezz a single no-mod item at a specific location (many vehicle rezzers work this way) but that's impractical for a large scene.

Yes, of course. I'd forgotten that part of it. It's been many years since I made and sold my temp-rezzer but before I went out earlier, I rezzed it and read the instructions, and that's exactly what it needs - a script to be dropped into each object to be rezzed. I didn't check what the script actually does, and I didn't take time to even think about it, but I concede the point.

Thank you Theresa and Qie.

ETA: I do know that a script in each rezzed object is necessary in order to tell the object to delete itself. I just don't remember why it's needed in temp-rezzed objects, because they are deleted by the system. I doesn't matter though, because the subject isn't temp-rezzers. It may be to do with positioning.

NOW I REMEMBER. It communicates its position, and position changes, with the rezzer.

Edited January 16, 2018 by Phil Deakins

[Nova Convair]

The furniture I use is in rezzers (NOT temp rezzers) and of course the stuff needs to be mod. Everything else is theoretical and a waste of time.

I fixed alot of stuff over the time. The skills of the creators are pretty low by my opinion and definitely required quite some fixes in the past - especially for scripted items. (readers of this thread excluded )

"The item will break when modded" - yeah sure and? I can change alot of things without breaking and if things don't work delete it. Copy or redelivery is easy.

Not to forget that I had alot of fun over the years to adapt things to my needs.

However, the creators can keep their no mod garbage except it's very cheap or I have no choice.

Edited January 16, 2018 by Nova Convair

[Phil Deakins]

I said this before very recently. For most people, if an item isn't to your satisfaction, don't buy it. Buying something that isn't quite to your satisfaction, thinking that you'll edit it to suit your needs, is a mistake for many or most people. There are exceptions but, on the whole, I don't think that mod or no-mod should come into it.

Edited January 16, 2018 by Phil Deakins

[Penny Patton]

2 hours ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Solution: don’t buy no-mod. You’re welcome!

 

25 minutes ago, Phil Deakins said:

I said this before very recently. For most people, if an item isn't to your satisfaction, don't buy it. 

Yes, "if you don't like it, don't buy it" is something we can do, and I even recommended exactly that in the second sentence of my post, but saying this to silence discussion on the topic is silly. There are not always other options readily available (name 3 non-anime modifiable fitmesh/bento bodies and heads with widespread support) and while I fully recognize that many people simply do not mod at all, it's worth pointing out that a lot of people, including those who do mod regularly, are completely unaware of cost and framerate saving techniques they could easily do themselves but have locked themselves out of unwittingly by supporting no-mod sellers. These topics are almost entirely absent from the SL blog community at large (most popular blogs devoted to mesh bodies leave out the issue of perms altogether and you need to head to more tech minded sources to read about framerate/performance issues and tips for improving your SL experience along those lines) so it is well worth bringing them up in the public discourse. 

34 minutes ago, Phil Deakins said:

Buying something that isn't quite to your satisfaction, thinking that you'll edit it to suit your needs, is a mistake for many or most people. There are exceptions but, on the whole, I don't think that mod or no-mod should come into it.

I would say this is a matter for each individual to decide for themselves. If someone is not comfortable with, or interested in, modding, then whether an item is mod or not probably isn't going to affect them. However, anyone with even the most remedial modding skills can usually make small adjustments to an item making it more suitable to their needs, such as resizing or colour tinting.

[Phil Deakins]

20 minutes ago, Penny Patton said:

I would say this is a matter for each individual to decide for themselves. If someone is not comfortable with, or interested in, modding, then whether an item is mod or not probably isn't going to affect them. However, anyone with even the most remedial modding skills can usually make small adjustments to an item making it more suitable to their needs, such as resizing or colour tinting.

I agree that it's entirely down to each individual. I suspect, though, that most people have no intention of altering what they buy, and wouldn't have sufficient abilities to do it well enough. I'm not talking about avatars (bodies, etc.). Pretty much my whole experience is with furniture, and that's all I am thinking about.

[Love Zhaoying]

26 minutes ago, Penny Patton said:

saying this to silence discussion on the topic is silly.

Hey there, not trying to silence discussion - just a reality check! How do you plan on “forcing” creators to make mod items? Many do, you just pay more!

[Love Zhaoying]

26 minutes ago, Penny Patton said:

saying this to silence discussion on the topic is silly.

Hey there, not trying to silence discussion - just a reality check! How do you plan on “forcing” creators to make mod items? Many do, you just pay more!

[Phil Deakins]

37 minutes ago, Penny Patton said:

saying this to silence discussion on the topic is silly.

I didn't say it to silence the discussion. I said it as part of the discussion. I'm assuming that different points of view are still allowed here.

Edited January 16, 2018 by Phil Deakins

[Love Zhaoying]

Follow-up question: are items sold on Sansar mod or no-mod? Is LL perpetuating the “no-mod travesty” or fixing it with the “next big thing”? ??

[Qie Niangao]

2 hours ago, Gadget Portal said:

But why would you buy restricted permission items if you intend to sell it with furniture that presumably doesn't have said restrictions? 

Just buy a similarly unrestricted teacup.

Not sure what you mean, but I'm pretty sure my "twisty" explanation was the source of confusion. Furniture maker sells their furniture with whatever perms -- most commonly copy+mod. But they want to embed a teacup that the furniture script will auto-attach to sitters on that furniture. Those sitters are the next-next-owners of the teacup so the buyer (the next-owner) must have permission to both copy and transfer the embedded teacup. And copy+transfer isn't acceptable to teacup creators...

... except just maybe in the very special case described with all those words in my confusing post, in which a no-mod teacup can be scripted in a particular way to make copy+transfer permissions a little less scary.

[Penny Patton]

1 hour ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Hey there, not trying to silence discussion - just a reality check! How do you plan on “forcing” creators to make mod items? Many do, you just pay more!

 Who said anything about "forcing" creators to do anything? I'm already repeating myself here but this thread is about discussing the issue and spreading information people may not have considered. And how your post in any way a "reality check"? Suggesting people not buy no-mod is literally the second sentence of the original post of the thread.

1 hour ago, Phil Deakins said:

I didn't say it to silence the discussion. I said it as part of the discussion. I'm assuming that different points of view are still allowed here.

How is it a "different viewpoint" if it's exactly what is suggested in the second sentence of the very first post of the thread?

 Not to mention, saying this comment wasn't meant to silence the discussion seems disingenuous when in this thread (as well as that other thread) you keep repeating it as a reply to everyone as if it is the only response, dismissing out of hand every comment pointing out that you're missing the point. 

25 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Follow-up question: are items sold on Sansar mod or no-mod? Is LL perpetuating the “no-mod travesty” or fixing it with the “next big thing”? ??

There seems to be a discussion about this going on in the Sansar arena, where LL wanted to allow people to modify content they purchase off the Sansar marketplace but some sellers want it all locked down to the equivalent of no-mod. I had a link the other day but I can't seem to find it right now. I'm only kinda sorta following Sansar issues right now since I can't even log in over there.

16 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

... except just maybe in the very special case described with all those words in my confusing post, in which a no-mod teacup can be scripted in a particular way to make copy+transfer permissions a little less scary.

I'm wondering if doing it as a temp-attach item is a feasible way to do this. You don't need an experience to do temp-attach, it just works with a regular popup. Then the person receiving the teacup isn't receiving the actual teacup as inventory, just as a prop specific to that furniture.